Heard around the West

James Watt is
positively basking in nostalgia these days.
For those who don’t recall his bumpy years in Washington,
D.C., Watt was the former Interior Department secretary under
President Reagan, who pushed for energetic energy development on
all public lands. When The Denver Post caught up
with Watt recently, he was delighted to talk about the Bush
team’s emphasis on mining and drilling wherever necessary.
"Everything (Vice President) Cheney’s saying, everything the
president’s saying — they’re saying exactly what
we were saying 20 years ago," he said. "Twenty years later, it
sounds like they’ve just dusted off the old work." As for
conservation and bringing on more renewable energy, such as wind
and solar power, Watt scoffed, calling them "teeny infant
portions."

Meanwhile, energy-deprived California has
turned into the "trailer park next door."
It’s the "cash-only, deadbeat neighbor forced to beg for
enough power to keep the swamp cooler running," says the
San Francisco Chronicle. Spending an amazing $50
million a day on power since mid-January, California has gotten way
behind on its payments to suppliers, some of whom have reaped
windfalls by charging much higher prices for electricity. "We have
to go into higher begging mode for generators out of state," says
Jim McIntosh, who directs grid operations for California. "From the
electricity standpoint, we’re operating like the Third
World." Things got ultra-tense in early May when some spot-market
suppliers balked. Canadian utility BC Hydro, for example, was
miffed because California owed it $307 million for past sales of
power. The utility told California: Pay up, or our electrons halt
at the state line. Faced with a loss of electricity to 2 million
homes, California staffers "marched down to the bank and wired the
money." Even with generators under contract, there’s a
tug-of-war. McIntosh says in his 3l years in the electricity
business, he never before had to ask a lawyer to work the phones.
Now, when utilities obligated to send electricity demur, two
lawyers stand by "to remind generators of their commitment."

Tut, tut, Bill
Gates, you are a water hog. Last year, the
Microsoft maven scarfed down 4.7 million gallons of water —
enough to flood his five-acre estate almost three feet deep,
reports the Seattle Times. The cost: $24,828 for
Gates and his wife, Melinda, to become the area’s top
residential water consumers. The couple was anything but pleased
about their status. "Immediately, they asked the staff to look into
the cause of the high level of water use," a family spokesman told
Associated Press. Here’s a clue: The $109 million
monster-house includes a 60-foot pool, sauna and indoor-outdoor
spa. But groundskeepers say most of the water went for irrigation
and heating and cooling the mansion.

The Army is bragging about its new bullet
that will kill you dead but in a way
that’s environmentally friendly to the ground. The "green
ammunition" for M-16 rifles cost $12 million to create and contains
a less toxic tungsten composite instead of lead, reports Associated
Press. By 2005, the military says, soldiers in all branches will
fire some 200 million rounds a year of these better bullets.

If President
Bush wants to know just how well he’s confused
Americans about where he stands on
environmental issues, he can consult a Newsweek
poll. Half the 1,002 adults asked said Bush is not committed to
protecting the environment. At the same time, over half said Bush
is doing a "good job" of tackling the nation’s energy and
environmental problems.

The water filling the 900-foot-deep Berkeley
Pit, left over from the now closed open-pit
copper mine in Butte, Mont., shines a seductive blue. Despite its
poisons, it attracts migrating birds for a drink and a stopover.
Inevitably the birds flop over dead; even houseflies croak
instantly, victims of the metallic mine-wastes that taint the
water. But a Montana Tech graduate student, studying whether algae
could clean up the pit, couldn’t believe her eyes when she
saw tiny bugs thriving in its water. "I was shocked," Sarah Dakel
told Associated Press. "I yelled, ‘There’s a bug in
here!’ " She and her professor, Grant Mitman, then scrambled
to collect some of the insects, known as water boatmen. Mitman
guesses that the animals, which can fly and swim underwater,
developed their tolerance for metallic water over hundreds of years
in the Butte area.

Everyone has an opinion about french
fries. A 106-year-old woman in western
Colorado says she swears by McDonalds’ salty version,
delivered daily by her son. High cholesterol is not a problem for
Mary Clark; she’s been eating french fries for decades,
reports the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. But
french fries can be a big problem for vegetarians, reports the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, if they come from
McDonalds. Though the fast-food chain claims that its fries are
cooked in "100 percent vegetable oil," a class-action suit charges
that McDonalds uses beef tallow as "natural flavor." "This is
pretty outrageous behavior," says attorney Harish Bharti, who filed
the suit in King County, Wash. "Hindus and vegetarians all over the
world feel shocked and betrayed." McDonalds had no comment.